Being a Suspect, Not a Terrorist, Gets You Killed or Detained Indefinitely

Very few persons of any nationality have been convicted of terrorist acts during the alleged "War on Terror". A few persons have been convicted of violations of technicalities of immigration law, and then alleged to be "terrorists".

But thousands have been detained and more thousands have been killed just for being "suspected" of terrorism or for being in the same building where terrorist suspects were present. Even this week, it was revealed that civilians were killed in Afghanistan by bombs dropped from warplanes at suspected terrorist targets, and the UN official explained that this is not quite as bad as it sounds because the Taliban use humans as shields.

Thus, apparently, it is acceptable in wartime to kill the shields along with the suspects. That way you don’t have to convict anyone of terrorism, and you get to continue fighting indefinitely because by killing the shields you create incentive for more people to become terrorists and certainly for more people to be suspected as terrorists since terrorists are usually victims who want some sort of revenge.

The more victims you create, the more people want revenge and thus you create a self-perpetuating war on terrorism or on terrorism suspects.

These realities serve as reminders to a famous line in the movie "Shenandoah" where Jimmy Stewart played a character whose family got caught up in the American Civil War, even though they wanted no part of the war. Stewart lamented regarding war, that "no one is winning except for the undertakers."

Certainly the undertakers are winning the war on terror. The U.S. military is not winning. The people of Afghanistan and Iraq are not winning. The American public is not winning. Almost no one is winning. But many are dying from all nationalities, religions and ethic groups. The undertakers are winning, as well as the financiers of war. And if you are a suspect, you are likely to be deprived of your life and/or your liberty.

When will people quit fearing terror and start fearing injustice? When will people start campaigning for justice and put an end to state terror as well as terror caused by victims of states?

Violence is self-perpetuating on all sides of this war. Victomhood leads to further violence. What is sorely needed is a refocusing and a push for peace and for justice without resorting to violence. Greed needs to be treated as evil. The Ten Commandments of the Holy Bible included "Thou must not covet…"

This should include "thou must not covet thy neighbor’s oil reserves." Perhaps if we could shift away from greed and injustice we would have no terrorists or terror suspects to deal with and all could live in peace.

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